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Now to see what all this reasoning has established:
Universally, what approaches as a good is a Form; Matter itself
contains this good which is Form: are we to conclude that, if
Matter had will, it would desire to be Form unalloyed?
No: that would be desiring its own destruction, for the good
seeks to subject everything to itself. But perhaps Matter would
not wish to remain at its own level but would prefer to attain
Being and, this acquired, to lay aside its evil.
If we are asked how the evil thing can have tendency towards the
good, we answer that we have not attributed tendency to Matter;
our argument needed the hypothesis of sensation in Matter- in so
far as possible consistently with retention of its character- and
we asserted that the entry of Form, that dream of the Good, must
raise it to a nobler order. If then Matter is Evil, there is no
more to be said; if it is something else- a wrong thing, let us
say- then in the hypothesis that its essence acquire sensation
would not the appropriate upon the next or higher plane be its
good, as in the other cases? But not what is evil in Matter would
be the quester of good but that element in it [lowest Form] which
in it is associated with evil.
But if Matter by very essence is evil how could it choose the
good?
This question implies that if Evil were self-conscious it would
admire itself: but how can the unadmirable be admired; and did we
not discover that the good must be apt to the nature?
There that question may rest. But if universally the good is Form
and the higher the ascent the more there is of Form-Soul more
truly Form than body is and phases of soul progressively of
higher Form and Intellectual-Principle standing as Form to soul
collectively- then the Good advances by the opposite of Matter
and, therefore, by a cleansing and casting away to the utmost
possible at each stage: and the greatest good must be there where
all that is of Matter has disappeared. The Principle of Good
rejecting Matter entirely- or rather never having come near it at
any point or in any way- must hold itself aloft with that
Formless in which Primal Form takes its origin. But we will
return to this.
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